Village Characters

A Memory of Howden-le-Wear.

Mr Joe (Cloggy) Jackson

Almost everyone who met 'Cloggy' has stories to recollect of this colourful village character - Dave Quinn recalls:

Mr Joe 'Cloggy' Jackson, Club Doorman and Saturday Evening vendor of 'The Pink', AKA Sunderland Echo. Invariably dressed in flat cap and tight fitting jacket, riding breeches and leather boots, Cloggy looked every inch a 'horsey man'.

He claimed that as a lad he had been bed-mates with champion jockey Manny Mercer. This was extremely doubtful as Cloggy was not so much economical with the truth, but rather he embellished it.

The classic case occurred one hot Sunday morning when Cloggy was sitting shirt sleeved and barefoot by the well along Witton Road. A by-passer remarked upon Cloggy's weary and overheated state and was answered in no uncertain terms. 'Thou'd be hot if the'd just warked back from Ireland.'

Being something of a romancer Cloggy was also rather gullible. The most famous example of this being the Friday evening phone call to the Club requesting that Mr Jackson arrange a stall on the Market Place (in front of Cassy's shop) to take delivery of 30cwt of tripe on Saturday morning. The stall was duly erected and a 'horsey type' man in a borrowed butcher's apron was in attendance. The tripe never arrived.

This beggars two questions:
Which committee man made the phone call?
and,
Was it Irish tripe?

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